Inner Active Cards

Distracter Parts develop in response to conflict and emotional or physical pain.  It is their jobs to take our minds away from the trouble and give us something else to focus on, usually something sensate.  While there are healthy ways to keep us distracted from problems such as meditation, yoga, taking a walk in a park, or watching a movie, unhealthy ways of coping can cause more problems than they avoid.  Some people may become workaholics, putting in long hours at the office to avoid problems at home. But most people are really seeking ways to avoid the raging critics in their heads; managers that constantly monitor and criticize their actions.

People these days can be seen chatting on their cell phones in the company of their friends. Some people wear earbuds, listening to music to drown out the mind chatter that drives them nuts.

Television was the #1 mode of technology used by distracter Parts: People appear glued to the couch watching mind-numbing programs one after another. Computer games and Facebook have added new tools to the distracter’s arsenal and can be as problematic as TV, especially if they interfere with peoples’ livelihoods and relationships. Still others need to keep incessantly busy, afraid to sit and rest less their inner critics catch up to them.

Helping Parts care for others and all creatures great and small. This can be a rich source of spiritual and social connection and happiness.  Sometimes however, even our helping Parts can take over and become entangled in co-dependant relationships and become enablers.  People in the helping professions, clergy, teachers, nurses or social workers are especially vulnerable to over-active helping Parts, often pushing to the point of exhaustion. Parents too, must balance how much they give to their children and know when to step back and teach their kids how to live independently in the world. If a nurturing or a helping Part becomes extreme it is important to find out the reasoning behind their behaviour. There is likely a need to be needed, to feel safe, loved, and even praised.  Who wouldn’t like to hear “Oh, you are so kind and good hearted”?  Sometimes an extreme manager is pushing them to compensate for lack of self-esteem, and such praise becomes positive reinforcement for their extreme behaviour.

Striving Parts can also be hardwired.  We all know of the goal-oriented, determined people who stop at nothing to accomplish their tasks and dreams. While some people are content to keep their dreams in dream land, these driven folks, especially in their extreme forms, are like bull dogs that don’t stop until they drop, bringing amazing, often visionary dreams to reality, but with a cost to family, the bank account and health. Think of the modern miracles of technology, medicine, exploration, leadership in social causes, and the list goes on.

We need our Parts to interface with the outer world. How our Parts organize to process incoming information and determine our actions is not only a response to our experiences and formed beliefs about the world, but each of us is “hard wired” in a unique way that supports dominant Parts, who in turn, give us our individual temperaments. For instance, dominant Parts can determine how our psychic “batteries” are charged: Are you charged by being with people and find interacting in the outer world stimulating and satisfying? Or do you find that you need time alone to recharge, find the inner world of ideas and imagination stimulating and satisfying? If you answered yes to the first question, chances are you have extroverted Parts playing dominant roles in your personality, whereas if you answered yes to the second question, you are likely to have dominant introverted Parts. Again, it is important to have dominant Parts centered in Self or they too will become extreme.

Spiritual Guides can hold Self-qualities, and some believe they are actually Self taking a personal form. Some think they are Parts and some believe they are separate entities like Guardian Angels.  I have experienced the transforming power of spiritual guides and it’s very real, although they remain a mystery to me.  They can be called upon to help a client when she is stuck with stubborn, deeply wounded or fearful parts that prevent Self-awareness, and called upon to help the therapist navigate difficult situations in therapy.

Therapists sometimes report feeling flooded by negative energy when with certain clients and guides have proven essential to help them unburden and garner strength to deal with it.  Also, be aware that there are forces in opposition to spiritual guides and they can be tricky. Remember, Spiritual Guides hold Self-qualities.

As we grow up we soon learn that pleasing others pays off; by saying nice things to another, doing favours for someone, or making someone laugh we are accepted by friends and we are praised and rewarded by parents, teachers and bosses.  If we enjoy pleasing someone and we are under Self-Leadership, our lives will be fulfilling and our personal relationships healthy, but if we please at the expense of our authentic Selves to be accepted into a click of conditional friends, to get love in a one-way relationship, or hide our true feelings behind a mask of cheerfulness, a sense of emptiness and depression will soon haunt us.

Depressed Parts can present in many different forms, for different reasons and in degrees of power they hold. Some are situational, forming in response to something, usually negative, we experience and by the meaning we give to it. Divorce, a death, job loss, rape, or a diagnosis of a serious health problem, even aging, if we identify with our culture’s emphasis on youthful beauty and vitality, can trigger Parts who leave us leaving blue, feeling worthless and longing for the good ol’ days.

These types of depressed Parts may actually be asking us to stop, step out of our harried lives, and spend time doing the inner work; Parts Work, meditation, journaling, prayer, etc., that is needed to get centred in Self and find clarity. We may come to realize loss is a part of life and we need time to grieve and heal, and realize how our thinking can either make unfortunate situations much worse or make them opportunities for personal growth.